Emily
by poetanddidntknowit34
Summary: Khan has a reason to fight so hard for his crew.
1. Chapter 1

"After all, no ship should go down without her captain." Khan smirked, then teleported Kirk back to the Enterprise before aiming and firing the weapons systems at the craft. "Pity," Khan thought to himself, "It truly is a great piece of machinery."

A loud explosion shook the ship, knocking Khan out of The Chair and sending him sliding across the floor. The cargo hold near the weaponry was exploding. The torpedoes! Khan cried out in a furious rage, his crew dying with each explosion. Jumping to his feet, he raced through the ship to the damage. He whizzed past the bodies of the previous crew, not paying any heed when he stepped on and broke a few bones here and there. All that mattered was getting to where his crew had been.

The room was now charred and black, and several windows had been busted open, all the oxygen gone, and ash and charr was adrift in the air. Torpedo fragments confirmed his fear: no survivors. A lump formed in his chest. He hadn't felt pain in years, and he was losing the battle quickly. Something small and metal bumped into his cheek. Stepping back, Khan recognized it immediately. Emily's ring. The ring he'd worked so hard to create, and conceal perfectly in her pod, in the hopes that it would be the first thing she saw when she awoke again. He closed a hand around it, the hot steel burning it's shape into his palm, and an anger and pain boiling in his toes. The unfamiliar emotions exploded out of him in another guttural yell. He sent a fist into the steal support beam next to him, the metal crumbling like paper mâché. The fragile ceiling gave way, and another beam crashed into the back of Khan's head, catching him off guard and sending him into the blackness of unconsciousness.

******

"Khan, what are you doing?" Emily stuck her head into the lab, her orange ringlets tumbling down her shoulders like a waterfall of fire.

"Just finishing up the work for Dr. Kale. Trying to perfect these cryotubes to hold a human being for more than just a few years." He continued to peer through the magnifying glass at the wirings of the machine. Emily walked around the table and wrapped her slender arms around his waist, laying her head against his back. "What are you doing?"

"Reminding you that we were supposed to spend tonight together. We do ship out for our first mission tomorrow, Captain Singh, and I would like one last day with you as my lover, rather than my commanding officer." She poked him in the side.

"I'm always your commanding officer." He poked her back, but the comment earned him a punch in the arm. "Right. Not good. Well, just let me finish up here, and we'll go get some food."

Emily huffed, blowing a ringlet out of her face. "Fine." She perched on a stool in the corner and watching him work in silence for a while. Finally she said, "Do you think, after our directive is complete, we'll be able to be together in peace? Without the doctors breathing down our necks, without the training and drills? Where I can cook and garden and we can be alone?"

Khan looked up. "Emily, our directive is just that. Purge the evil, then repopulate and live in peace." He walked over and picked up her hand, tracing the lines on her palm. He placed a gentle kiss there, and whispered, "After all, we were engineered for each other."

******

Khan awoke from the memory to find his ship falling to earth quickly. He felt the ring still clutched in his hand, stood, and let his anger consume him. He knew exactly who pay for her murder, and it didn't matter how many people had to perish before he got to him. Commander Spock would die just as she had.


	2. Chapter 2

Khan shifted slightly against his restraints in the medical lab, his head dropped against his chest. "You want me to taze him, Bones?" Scotty said, peering eagerly through the glass at their (once again) prisoner.

Bones rolled his eyes. "For the last time, Scotty. No. Kirk gave specific instructions that he is to be kept healthy until his execution. Do you want to face charges of cruel and unusual punishment?"

Scotty just sighed loudly and walked off down the corridor, kicking a metal trashcan as he went. Bones shook his head and opened the door to the lab. "How are you feeling since the blood transfusion?" Khan didn't move. "Your color is looking better." No response. "Look, I don't like being your babysitter anymore than you like being babysat. But, I have orders."

Khan raised his head, the pure hopelessness behind his eyes made Bones step back and collect himself. "Why don't you just kill me now? I'll lie still on the table and take every ounce of poison you inject into me." Bones took a few steps forward to look into his face. "I want to join my crew. Once and for all. Since you had denied that privilege many times, why continue now?"

"Look here, you. Kirk-"

"I know, I know." The calm drawl in his voice remained constant, but the dull in his eyes proved he was already dead inside. "Captain wants to kill me himself. Thinking only of 'justice', but surely it is just revenge." He dropped his head and whispered, "They're all dead."

Silence fell upon the room once more. Finally, against his better judgment, Bones pressed a button, and opened the door to the next room; the one with the cryotubes aligned in perfect rows. "You're wrong." He pressed the release, and the cuffs fell away, letting Khan stumble awkwardly to the center of the lab. Bones pointed to the room, and followed Khan inside, a stun gun in his hand.

Khan stood in the doorway, disbelief clouding his mind. With each confused blink, the life returned to his eyes, and he strode eagerly forward, listing off the names as he passed each tube. "Jasper, Nezzy, Lauren," He was practically running by the time he got to the last one. Peering into the final tube, he inhaled sharply. "Oh, Emily." Ginger hair floated freely, suspended in time, around a face he thought he'd never see again. Khan placed a flat hand over the glass, and a tear escaped down his high cheekbones, and onto the tube. He pulled the ring out of his pocket and gripped it tight, planting a light kiss on the glass above her china forehead.

Bones watched Khan carefully, then made his decision quickly. As Khan straightened back up, lights exploded behind his eyes as the stun gun connected hard against his skull. And he dropped into blackness like a sack of concrete.

"What the hell, Bones?!" Kirk stormed around the med lab, yelling until his face was red. "Where is he?!"

Bones didn't even look up from his paper work. "I'm not telling you until you stop shouting at me, Jim."

"Captain," Kirk began, but was cut off.

"I'm telling you until you chill the hell out, CAPTAIN." He spit the word with bitterness.

Kirk stepped back in surprise, then calmed down. "I'm sorry. But, where did he go, Bones?"

The doctor rose silently, and opened the door, walking straight to Khan's cryotube. "Why?" Kirk hissed, trying to keep his voice level. Bones didn't answer. "Why the hell is that bastard a fucking popsicle, and not waiting for me to shoot him in his god damn face!" The captain was practically screaming again.

"Who are you, Jim, to decide whether or not someone dies?" Kirk opened his mouth, but was cut off again. "You've lost your humanity in this ordeal. You have no right to end a life."

The two men stared each other down silently, catching their breath and waiting for the other to make a move. Finally, Kirk looked away and back at the cryotube. "What the hell is he smiling about?"

He placed a hand on Kirk's back, and began to lead him out of the room. "Some things aren't meant to be known." He said absently. But before turning the light out on the frozen crew, he looked to the tube beside Khan, and smiled assuringly to the red hair and fair face.


End file.
